


Bleak Future, Forgotten Past

by GettingGreyer



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s12e05 Fugitive of the Judoon, Ficlet, Gen, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettingGreyer/pseuds/GettingGreyer
Summary: Ruth!Doctor thinks about what she learned from meeting the Thirteenth Doctor, including Gallifrey's destruction.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Bleak Future, Forgotten Past

**Author's Note:**

> I just quickly wrote this last night as a kind of practice to help get me into this new character.

This woman was her future. The Doctor could hardly believe it, but she knew it to be true. Instinctively she knew that this is who she would become, but if this was indeed her future then her future seemed truly bleak.

The blonde woman—the other Doctor—had decided to adorn herself with rainbows and trousers that don't reach. She certainly didn't care for her future's appearance nor the fake smiles she seemed to give so freely. She had smiled so bravely and fiercely at Ruth and Ruth had trusted her so readily. The Doctor didn't like it, but Ruth had even admired the other Doctor but she hadn't seen beneath the facade. The Doctor had and she didn't like what she saw nor what she heard.

She claimed that Gallifrey had been destroyed—twice even—and that chilled her to the bone. She wanted to deny it, but just as she could sense that this woman was her future she could also feel that her words were true. She wasn't a trick or a trap, but a vision of a fate yet to come—a fate that she could not escape.

Gallifrey destroyed, reduced to cinders until all that remained were ashes and bones. That was the future that had been promised to her ….

A war … Gallifrey had many enemies—it wasn't a planet ruled by kind people. There were numerous possibilities for how such a conflict could occur, the Time Lords certainly weren't entirely averse to warfare, but to be destroyed? That was inconceivable. The level of destruction required … it would be almost monstrous—what could possibly destroy Gallifrey?

… and what destroyed it again?

Questions were swirling in her mind and all the Doctor wanted to do was to demand answers. None of what this woman said made any sense! But she couldn't, she knew the rules of time as well as anyone and their meeting already had the potential to be the abomination that Gat feared it to be.

But the Doctor needed answers and this other Doctor had only left her with questions.

Gallifrey … 

The Doctor tried to imagine what it must look like, but all she could see was beautiful orange skies, a perfect citadel protected by its glass dome, and the songs of home. She couldn't imagine Gallifrey as anything else, let alone ash and bone. But beneath that veneer of peace, there had always been an indomitable and fearsome presence—a Conqueror. The Doctor had no trouble imagining the Time Lords at war and in battle—fighting for the "glory" of the founding fathers who selfishly ate at the universe and left it to rot. She could imagine the Time Lords as warriors and Gallifrey as a center of an Empire—they were horrifying but vividly clear ideas. She couldn't fathom Gallifrey falling and the Time Lords losing. 

But it would happen. And she couldn't demand answers if she didn't want her own timestream to be ripped asunder. But there was one question that still haunted her and that she couldn't let go.

The other Doctor—the one who seemed so far in her future, the one who seemed utterly alone—had no memory of who she was, of who the Doctor was right now. And if that is her future then her past was at stake as well.

She quite liked this body and this regeneration. She didn't want to lose that, but something was coming for her—time is swirling around her and she isn't going to be able to escape from it.

The future is the one thing the Doctor could never fully run away from and it seemed her past was coming for her as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of thought it would be interesting to parallel this Doctor with our Doctor with those last couple of lines.


End file.
